Kickstarter raised US$480m of project funding in 2013

In its 2013 year review, online fundraising website Kickstarter has seen US$480m worth of people-sourced funding for projects from a hovercraft DeLoreon to a Veronica Mars film.

Since starting in 2009, Kickstarter has had a massive influence on how projects across the world – from the life-changing to the down-right weird – are funded, all in the name of giving people with an idea the ability to actually create something.

In its brilliantly designed report, Kickstarter has highlighted that it’s been its busiest year to date, with 3m people from across the globe having contributed to various projects.

This means that on each day of last year US$1,315,520 was raised, clocking in at US$913 every minute.

Power to the people

In total, 19,911 projects came to fruition last year and came in all shapes and sizes.

Over four years, the company led by Charles Adler, Perry Chen and Yancey Strickler has given us many products that would be familiar to us.

One of the most publicised and highly backed Kickstarter results came with the 2013 launch of the smartwatch Pebble. After receiving more than US$10m in crowdfunding from nearly 69,000 backers, the device went on sale. When it launched its Kickstarter campaign in April 2012, it raised $1m in just over a day.

Certainly one of the coolest and probably least practical Kickstarters was San Francisco’s Matthew Riese’s attempt in 2010 to build a hovercraft designed to look like Doc Brown’s legendary DeLorean DMC 12 from Back to the Future. After reaching his target of just over US$5,600, he took to the waters of San Fran in his neon-lit hovercar.

Film and TV

The hit show Veronica Mars, which followed the life of a college girl who moonlit as a private investigator, was so well-loved by its fans that project manager Rob Thomas received more than US$5m to resurrect the show as a feature film.

Likewise, Hollywood actor Zach Braff raised more than US$3m for a sequel to the cult indie film Garden State.

This year, watch out for Egg, the proposed intelligent cat companion that responds to a cat’s reaction through movement and sound.